


The New Alice

by sadlikeknives



Category: TOUS - Tender Stories Nº4
Genre: GOOD MORNING ALICE, Other, POV Outsider, Suburban Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 18:25:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8928247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: Everyone in the neighborhood knew that Alice's husband went to Mars and Alice moved out one day, renting the house to another blonde woman, who was coincidentally also named Alice.
...didn't she?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



A blonde woman and her British astronaut husband had lived in the house at the end of the block for a while. Things were strained between them, the neighbors noted, but there was no wonder: Richard had been chosen for the first manned mission to Mars, to leave Earth behind and never look back, and Alice...well, Alice was some kind of fashion designer. Alice was never going to be chosen to go to Mars.

Richard spent a lot of time in the garage, recording tapes for Alice, for after he was gone. "She'll move on eventually, of course," he'd said "but I don't want her to forget my voice just yet." There were, he confided to Pete, divorce papers waiting in a safe for the day Alice wanted to sign them, for the day she found a man who wasn't just a memory.

Eventually, Richard went off to space, and boy, wasn't that something, to have a neighbor who was going to help colonize Mars? Alice stuck around for a while before one day she left without saying goodbye and suddenly there was a _new_ blonde woman living in the house at the end of the block. Her name was Alice, too, which was, everyone agreed, a funny coincidence. The new Alice just smiled in her cool, reserved way and agreed that yes, wasn't that funny? 

It somehow became much less funny then. The new Alice had that way about her; she'd look at you and you'd feel like you were being ridiculous, like you weren't up to her standards. But then she'd smile and you'd forget that you'd found her offputting the moment before.

The first Alice, the new Alice said, had decided she needed a change of scenery. She was traveling on the healthy allowance the government had bestowed on the family members of those who'd gone to Mars without them, and was renting the house to the new Alice and her husband, who was frequently away on business. The new Alice's husband was also named Richard, and wasn't that funny, too? When Jen McAllister asked the new Alice what her husband did, she answered, vaguely, that he was in engineering. No one in the neighborhood could remember ever meeting him. He came home sometimes, it seemed, but it seemed that they had always just missed him.

The first Alice had left nearly everything behind, even the bookshelves full of tapes. The new tenant took down all the photos and put them in storage, which seemed sensible enough. No one wanted to spend all day looking at strangers' faces, after all. She left the cassettes where they were, though. "I kind of like it," she told Susan Porter. "It's almost like an art installation, isn't it?" Her mouth had been tight as she'd continued, "It's a shame she didn't appreciate them the way she should have." People would argue, later, over whether she'd said 'them' or 'him.'

The new neighbor proved to be a tough nut to crack. She was cool and collected, keeping mostly to herself, except for the neighborhood events she showed up to seemingly at random, always saying vaguely that, "Oh, Richard told me I should come." She changed all of the plantings in two of the flower beds in the backyard in the first week she moved in, but when Jen and Renee tried to strike up a conversation about plants with her at the Porters' Christmas cocktail party, she claimed she didn't much care for gardening. She never had people over, which made sense when one considered what she'd told Jen.

Jen had been the first person to discover they had a new neighbor. Her maid had stopped showing up one week, and when Pilar didn't answer her phone, either, Jen had gotten concerned and gone over to knock on Alice's door, since she knew Pilar worked for her, too, and ask if she'd heard from her. To her surprise, a new Alice had answered the door.

The new Alice had explained, apologetic, that she was renting the house for an undetermined period of time, until she and her husband found something new or the other Alice came back, though if she didn't, of course, they might buy the house. Then she'd said that she'd let Pilar go first thing, because she didn't like other people in her house, going through her things. Bit of a germaphobe, everyone agreed. Certainly very private. She hadn't even let Jen in from the doorstep, and when Susan Porter had commented on the tapes, which were hard to miss through the front windows, still being there, she hadn't been very happy that she'd even glanced in those windows.

Over time, people got used to the new Alice. She seemed an improvement on the old Alice, honestly—she'd always been a little bitter, unable to get over the fact that Richard had chosen Mars over her. Anna Jackson was convinced there was something off about her, though, which was plainly crazy. Sure, she dressed a lot like the old Alice, but everyone in their well-to-do suburb dressed about the same, anyway. There was the necklace, though...

Richard had told Pete McAllister that in addition to the tapes, he'd left surprises, arranged in advance with Pilar, to work in conjunction with the tapes. Alice, he'd added fondly, had always loved little scavenger hunts on her birthday and anniversary, things like that. Pete had asked what happened if Alice gave up the tapes and signed the divorce papers, and Richard had said, weary, "Well, then I guess she gets everything in a bundle." Alice had showed up to a block party a few months after Richard left in a new necklace that matched some jewelry she already had, an anniversary gift, apparently, and everyone had exclaimed over how romantic it all was.

Then one day the new Alice showed up in the same necklace, with the same accompanying jewels.

"You don't suppose Alice left her jewelry behind too when she moved out," Renee said dubiously over coffee with Jessica Simcox.

"Surely not," Jessica said. "I'm sure lots of women have that necklace."

Renee felt uneasy, but she let it go. Jessica was right. Lots of women had to have that necklace. And if the new Alice said that her husband, that other Richard none of them had ever met, had given it to her for her anniversary...well. Probably lots of women's husbands had given it to them for their anniversaries.

Lots of women were named Alice, people told themselves if they thought about it. Lots of men were named Richard. Lots of maids disappeared and never called again—so hard to get good help, as the new Alice had sighed when Pilar's disappearance had come up once—and lots of women had to own that necklace.

Somehow, no one was very surprised when the driveway of the house at the end of the block was full of police cars one day, with crime scene technicians digging up the flower beds in the backyard. It was more surprising to learn that the woman's name really had been Alice.


End file.
